Scientists urge talk before 'inevitable' dilemma

Brown University
professor Elii Adashi can't see far into the future, but he can
foresee the ethical quandary that lies at the end of current vitro
gametogenesis (IVG).

IVG allows scientists to use stem
cells, whether induced or embryonic, to make gametes, or sperm and
egg cells that can be fertilized, thus creating embryos. A
hypothetical endpoint of this technology is embryos being created
from skin cells, thus removing the necessity of gametes derived from
testes or ovaries.

“There’s something troubling about
an inexhaustible supply of gametes that can be fertilized into an
inexhaustible supply of embryos,” Adashi said.

Adashi is
one of the authors of an essay published in Science Translational
Medicine recently in which medical and legal experts from Brown
and Harvard universities examined the scientific, clinical and
ethical implications of rapidly progressing IVG work.

While
the immediate use for IVG is likely to be gamete research, one of the
advances presented by the technology is that it creates an abundant
supply of eggs, and therefore a potentially abundant supply of
embryos. This has ethical implications in terms of research and
therapeutic uses, in which the use of embryos is already contested,
but also in terms of in vitro fertilization, where scores of embryos
could be created for perspective parents to choose from, or where
embryos could be created from a person’s skin sample without their
knowledge.

In the essay, the authors urge a public
conversation in the near future: “Given the stringent safety
imperative, clinical applications are less likely to be pursued any
time soon. Still, with science and medicine hurtling forward at
breakneck speed, the rapid transformation of reproductive and
regenerative medicine may surprise us. Before the inevitable, society
will be well advised to strike and maintain a vigorous public
conversation on the ethical challenges of IVG.”